A Slice of Kirby

I recently read China Miéville's short story "A Second Slice Manifesto" which imagines an art movement that reproduces thin slices of famous paintings which take, out of context, a mysterious bent. The brush strokes become other, dark patches are sinister, and the original work is all but forgotten. I immediately wanted to try that. And because this blog is what it is, I wanted to try it with a piece of Jack Kirby art. So let's take the above image of New Genesis from New Gods #2, and take a slice out of it almost randomly:

What do we see in this triangular piece of art?

Near the bottom, it's as if Dali drew comics, floating pieces of melting dream stuff drifing across landscape. Shapes that might once have been stirrups, eyeglasses, and who knows what else. Or is that a stylized face down there, its gooey nose dripping into its smile, a square blue eye shaped by a long orange brow?

Above a white partition that proposes a second panel we didn't know what there in the original splash, abstract geometrical shapes, the shadow of a cross or window a the apex, an art deco swan under it, and then a turbine or hamster wheel.

The thinnest sliver is all straight shapes; the thicker, lower part of the image, curves and chaos. Technology up above, nature down below. Hm. Seems like the essence of the original splash page has somehow survived this one slice...